Capacity-Building in Conflict Management

Brief Description

The Conflict Management
Capacity-Building project seeks to assist Governments and their civil
society partners in sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen their governance
capacities to anticipate and respond to conflict and crisis, to work
effectively in conflictual environments and defuse them, and to enrich
their development practice with conflict resolution tools, techniques
and planning mechanisms. To do this, the project is collaborating
with African conflict resolution practitioners to develop training
material in four areas:

(1) conflict analysis
and early response development;
(2) skills development for conflict transformation;
(3) conflict sensitive approaches to development; and
(4) national capacity-building in conflict management.

The training workshops
will be delivered to African government officials and their civil
society counterparts in partnership with training institutions on
the continent, such as public administration and management institutes,
universities, NGOs, civil service training institutes.

As the UN, UNDP and the international community grapple
with the profound political and socio-economic transformations of the last
decade, the development environment has become more complex and the relationship
between the related policy areas interfacing with the development process,
more interlinked. It has become apparent that there is an indisputable link
between peace and development. Development without peace is not sustainable
and peace without development is not durable. The linkage between the two
needs to be understood, strengthened and operationalized so that policy
and practice in these related areas can be mutually reinforcing. Moreover,
actualizing the linkage between development and peace is directly related
to building governance capacity. It requires developing institutional and
human resources for managing diversity and disputes in stable environments,
building capacity to mitigate disputes in emerging conflict situations,
and developing governance mechanisms to support reconciliation, co-existence
and conflict management efforts in post-conflict situations.

Such an integrated approach to capacity-building in conflict
management will assist sub-Saharan African countries (as well as intergovernmental
and bilateral aid agencies working with them) to strengthen their local
capacities to regulate internal and inter-state disputes constructively
and non-violently. It will redirect conflict management policy and practice
toward upstream measures that decrease the likelihood of outbreak, recurrence
or continuation of violent conflict and strengthen prospects for peaceful
coexistence, human security and sustainable development. Over time, this
can transform conflict-habituated systems locked in cycles of destruction
and promote coexistence in ways that are sustainable and have beneficial
impacts on overall development objectives.

OBJECTIVES

While the international community has recognized the need
for broader, systemic conflict prevention and management, the current orientation
is often still limited to "early" warning, conventional diplomacy,
emergency operations and peace-keeping, all of which are usually too late,
piece-meal, and reactive, rather than proactive. A developmental concept
of preventive action would formulate and implement proactive preventive
strategies for communities at risk of violent conflict. The overall objective
of this project is to develop diagnostic, analytical, planning and training
instruments that will help African governments and their civil society partners
to formulate proactive policies and strategies for managing disputes and
diversity in their societies in preemptive, constructive, non-violent ways.
These instruments will:

(1) support policy-making, institutions, and mechanisms
to manage and regulate disputes before they escalate into violence;
and,

(2) strengthen governmental and NGO capacities to further
national development objectives by integrating conflict management concepts
and practice into their policies and programmes.

These objectives will be accomplished through an integrated
programme of research, policy consultations, resource development and information
dissemination focused on four major themes: early warning analysis, national
capacity-building in conflict management; dispute resolution skills development,
and the integration of conflict management into development work. The resources
gathered from thematic specialists will inform a series of policy consultations,
round table discussions, brainstorming sessions and training modules which
will be formulated for government and civil society decision-makers. Written
manuals, which will include instruments for analysis and programme development
in each of the core areas, will emerge as tangible products of these seminars.

The objective of the advisory services will be to conduct
needs assessments and provide subject-specific expertise to help infuse
conflict prevention and management principles into available aid instruments,
policy frameworks, project formulation and implementation as well as the
working practices of development ministries, aid agencies, NGOs, CBOs, etc.
The aim of informational services will be to provide current and relevant
information, materials, literature and bibliographic references to governments,
civil society actors, UNDP, and other UN system and aid agencies.

ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED

Building capacity in conflict management can play a major
role in preventing and ameliorating conflict by developing individual and
institutional skills that can promote a culture of constructive problem
solving, cooperative negotiation, dialogue and dispute resolution throughout
society. This project aims to develop and test instruments that can be used
to build national capacity for managing diversity and conflict by transferring
analytical, policy-making and practical skills to government and civil-society
decision-makers to:

analyse the structural and proximate causes of conflict

anticipate potential areas of dispute and develop appropriate responses
for promoting peace as well as averting violence (preventive action
and response development)

use development tools in ways that mitigate the long-term structural,
as well as proximate, causes of conflict.

In order to provide assistance to national entities on
these broad range of issues within the conflict continuum, the project will
address four core thematic areas:

(1) Developing capacity for conflict analysis and early
response development

Consultations on conflict analysis and early response development
will aim to develop an analytical framework to understand
and anticipate potential sources of conflict in order to develop optimal
mitigating responses. It will elicit indicators for the onset of violence,
as well as opportunities for peace-building, by drawing on a range of different
sources and actors, making use of local knowledge, expertise and interpretations,
and formulating an understanding of the type of peace sought by the local
community. It will provide an opportunity for discussion on a range of issues
in early warning and conflict analysis, articulate a general framework for
early warning analysis, and apply this framework to the development of conflict-mitigating
responses. This is intended to enhance Governments capacity for the
formulation of strategies and programmes for the early mitigation of conflicts.

The framework for conflict analysis and early response
development will include a step-by-step process, first seeking to elicit
the factors which underlie conflict and the kind of peace sought by the
community. From this explicit understanding of conflict and peace dynamics,
the next step identifies key conflict and peace indicators. Further steps
involve deeper levels of analysis, such as categorizing the indicators according
to their structural or dynamic nature, weighing their relative importance,
and assessing the synergy among them. From this analysis, a framework for
response is developed which would enumerate the range of available conflict
prevention and management instruments, the actors in position to take action,
the synergies that can be created among actors and instruments, and finally,
the feasibility of responses in the specific conflict environment, looking
at both short-term and long-term structural, governance and developmental
linkages to conflict.

(2) National capacity-building in conflict management

Building national capacity to manage diversity and regulate
conflict is an integral component of good governance and sustainable development
and essential to promoting social cohesion and facilitating the work of
government. It builds State and non-State dispute resolution capacity by
developing and/or strengthening skills, mechanisms and institutions to promote
mediation and alternative forms of peaceful dispute resolution and to reduce
bias, marginalization and discrimination. Conflict management capacity-building
needs to be infused into national development strategies in a pre-emptive
manner in pre-conflict environments, as well as in post-conflict situations,
in order to develop an enabling environment for non-violent resolution of
disputes, collaborative problem-solving and tolerance-building and ending
the spiral of conflict.

Consultations and advisory services in this area will develop
diagnostic and prescriptive tools to assist government officials in formulating
strategies and programmes that will strengthen their governance capacities
for managing conflict. This diagnostic tool will provide guidance to:

In sum, this will help government and civil society examine
their conflict regulating mechanisms, assess their conflict management needs
and articulate a strategy to build appropriate capacity.

(3) Dispute resolution skills development

Mainstreaming the concepts and practice of conflict management
into governance practices and policy can enhance interactions within government,
between government and civil society, and in bi-lateral and multi-lateral
relations. Cooperative negotiation and problem-solving skills within government
help improve decision-making and coordination among ministries, resolve
policy issues between branches of government and smooth implementation problems
between central, regional and local levels of government. They can also
assist government officials to improve their negotiating capacity with civil
society, organized labour, the public sector, and in commercial, economic
and geo-political negotiations, as well as with bi-lateral donors and inter-governmental
agencies.

This thematic consultation will provide a conceptual overview
of the field and develop a menu of practical tools for dispute resolution,
principled negotiation and mediation. The theoretical
overview will be complemented by an analysis of recent practices
on the continent that can be tested for relevance in specific country situations.
These consultations will help government officials develop a repertoire
of conflict analysis and dispute resolution skills applicable to a broad
range of disputes.

(4) Integrating conflict management tools into development
work

Infusing overall development practice with conflict analysis
tools can amplify the conflict transforming role that development can play.
For example, initiatives to build conflict management capacity can assist
developing/transitional countries to manage the stresses of development,
mitigate internal tensions and handle conflict in ways which avert violence
and promote social cohesion. Similarly, incorporating a conflict resolution/prevention
dimension into overall development assistance can make development a more
proactive tool in preventing conflict. This thematic exploration will look
at both the general policy implications and country-specific initiatives.
Issues to be addressed include:

re-orienting development policy to include pre-conflict preventive and
peace-building strategies;

operationalizing a conflict awareness dimension in development practice;

evaluating the impact of development assistance on the peace/conflict
environment (conflict impact assessments on current and future projects);

encouraging cross-conflict participation in the development process,
including participatory project formulation, local "peace promoters"
training, tolerance-building, mediation and negotiation skills and other
dispute resolution activities; and

In sum, the sessions will offer a matrix of tools which
governments and civil society partners can use to design pre-emptive, conflict-mitigating
development policies, programmes and activities. In addition, cross-cutting
concerns regarding gender, power relationships and decision-making with
regard to conflict; the inclusion of diversity; and, an acknowledgment of
all vulnerable social groups will be integrated into the outputs of this
project in terms of the content of the material to be developed, as well
as in the process of selecting the composition of specialists and target
groups.

INTENDED USE OF RESULTS

The purpose of the project is two-fold: to strengthen the
capacities of governments and their partners, in civil society and the international
community, to further their objectives by integrating conflict management
concepts and operational tools into their development programmes, and to
strengthen national institutions, skills, and mechanisms so that disputes
can be managed and regulated locally before they escalate into violence.

The net result of the projects services will be that
national decision-makers in both government and civil society, will have
a repertoire of instruments to deal with pre-conflict, crisis, and post-conflict
environments. It will increase the awareness and skills of officials to
work within conflictual communities and to enhance the positive impact of
development programmes on the peace/conflict environment.

A secondary result will be that such assistance, in the
form of thematic studies, dialogues, information dissemination and networking,
can be made available more broadly, to staff of national governments, UN
staff, staff of regional organizations, and relevant international and local
NGOs working in sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition, the project will link with and support several
on-going initiatives within UNDP and the UN system as a whole. First, the
project outcomes directly address needs expressed by and recommendations
made at the AGF III on "Good Governance and Conflict Management for
Durable Peace and Sustainable Development." Specifically, the project
addresses two concrete recommendations to assist governments, civil society,
regional and sub-regional organizations to develop their skills and to reinforce
specific institutions with a conflict management mandate, as well as to
help infuse a conflict prevention dimension into a broad range of governance
institutions such as the judiciary, police, military and civil service.
Secondarily, the project can help maintain awareness of and commitment within
governments to implement the Forums follow-up objectives of enhancing
national conflict management mechanisms and creating linkages across society
and across borders to maximize conflict prevention and management efforts
on the continent.

Similarly, this project will be part of a three-pronged
approach to strengthen conflict-related competencies of UNDP field staff,
the UN system as a whole, and country nationals. It will be linked to and
work closely with the STAR programmes learning package which is delivering
training to UNDP field staff on working in conflictual situations. There
are established working relations with the UN Staff Colleges training
programmes, both the early warning and preventive measures course and the
TAPI initiative. The Staff College has expressed strong interest in contributing
to the project and, conversely, agrees that the tools, models and training
materials produced under this initiative will have great utility in that
they will be transferable and replicable by TAPI for other audiences.

DPEPA/DESA plans to convene two meetings in 2000 at which
the instruments developed in this project can be utilized and brought to
a wider audience of decision-makers in Africa. DESA will convene, with CAFRAD
(African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development),
a meeting of high-level officials from ministries of public service in Africa.
Tentative themes are being explored, including one on the role of the public
sector in conflict management. In this context, there will be an opportunity
to showcase to these senior officials, the projects instruments and
trainings models in order to expand their awareness of the conflict management
tools available to public administrators and to secure support from their
ministries for further training.

Secondly, an DPEPA/DESA ad hoc expert meeting has been
proposed on the subject of transforming and re-vamping institutes of public
administration in Africa. This proposed meeting, in cooperation with the
Uganda Institute of Management in Kampala, will introduce innovative methodologies
and training programmes for the public service, civil society and the private
sector. It can also be used to introduce the conflict management capacity
building projects products to public administrators, academicians,
government and civil society leaders, with the intention of transferring
and institutionalizing the thematic content into related training programmes
at these national management institutions.

It is further expected that the project will benefit, during
its implementation, from the results of related research and project activities,
such as the Fractured Societies project of UNDP/Africa, the War-torn Societies
Project of UNRISD and related peace-building and gender projects.

DESCRIPTION OF WORK

As outlined above, the project will provide a programme
of seminars and policy consultations for decision-makers, government officials,
development practitioners and civil society actors to strengthen their overall
conflict management capacity. These programmes will utilize the diagnostic
tools and analytical instruments compiled and developed by the specialists.
Government/civil society participants in the programmes will further develop
them in order to refine and adapt them based on their national needs, and
apply them accordingly. Comprehensive 3-4 day programmes will be designed
for each theme. Key concepts and information will be extracted to develop
one-day condensed seminars for senior policy-makers.

Advisory services will be available to: (1) create awareness
about the tools and skills available to increase capacities of Government
officials and development practitioners in anticipating, responding to,
and mitigating violent conflict; (2) strengthen local, national, and trans-national
competencies in conflict management; and (3) assist in the formulation of
governance modalities that build relevant capacities.

A resource collection and database will be developed, serving
to disseminate information to government officials, civil society representatives,
UNDP field offices and headquarters and UN system staff, in order to help
support and shape government development policy formulation related to conflict
mitigation and transformation. Information, materials, and literature will
be made available electronically and in a literature collection for use
by Member-States ministries, officials, NGOs, and civil society actors,
as well as by UN and UNDP Headquarters and field staff. It will include
the development of a database and hard-copy files of conflict resolution
organizations and specialists, information on programmes, relevant literature,
journal articles and bibliographic materials. This service will also include
dissemination of information, through electronic means and hard copy distribution,
including articles, noteworthy programmes, worthwhile events and new publications
in the field.

DESA will work with several conflict resolution and development
organizations with expertise in sub-Saharan Africa to develop the diagnostic
tools and planning instruments. Outreach will also be made to relevant management
development institutes and academic institutions to solicit their inputs
in the development of the materials, as well as to involve them in the eventual
use and institutionalization of the materials in various academic and training
sites around the continent. The content, duration and processes of training,
as well as the selection of trainers, target groups and venues will be carefully
determined in order to ensure that the project will have maximum impact.

In order for UNDP field offices to fully support the project
and infuse the concepts into their development assistance programmes, it
will be advantageous for field staff to fully participate in these programmes
together with government and civil society officials. The field testing
of the tools/models will be aimed at, but not limited to, countries participating
in the AGF process who will make a modest contribution for the convening
of local workshops. Since funding under this SPPD is limited to the design
and testing of the instruments, further national workshops from other sources
of funding, will be suggested to participating countries as part of a follow-up
process, that will hopefully expand into a comprehensive regime of training.

WORK PLANAND SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES

Step 1 - Recruit and supervise international experts and
consultants and consultations with thematic specialists

Terms of reference for conflict resolution specialists
and the sub-contracted organizations will be finalized including a typology
of issues to be covered in each thematic area. Consultations will be held
with conflict resolution specialists with specific geopolitical expertise
and will inform the design process and produce preliminary understandings
of the core issues to be covered in each of the four thematic areas. The
group will include specialists from African NGOs, research and academic
institutions, conflict resolution organizations, universities and management
institutes with expertise in conflict dynamics and best practices in this
geo-political region. It will also include representatives of regional and
sub-regional organizations, including officials working with the OAU Conflict
Mechanism.

Step 2 - Coordinating/planning meetings with design team
and consultations with thematic specialists

The thematic specialists will be brought together for a
planning and coordination meeting to develop the guidelines and conceptual
parameters of each seminar and develop the range of subjects within each
theme. This will avoid duplication, ensure consistency of format in presentation
and develop the necessary linkages between the thematic presentations. Consultative
processes on each theme will then be held with relevant specialists to develop
appropriate materials and documentation as a basis for the specific analytical
tools and instruments related to each theme.

--Planning and coordination meetings with design team Jan./Feb.
2000

--Consultative processes with relevant specialists
Jan./Feb. 2000

Step 3- Conceptual development in each thematic
area

The programmes for each thematic seminar will be developed
by the consulting specialists for presentation in in-depth 3-4 day formats
and tentatively in condensed one-day formats as determined in the consultation
process.

--Programme development by design team Feb - April 2000

Step 4 - Development of programme evaluation instruments

Programme evaluation instruments for the condensed and
comprehensive consultation programmes will be developed as tools for improving
the instruments in each thematic module.

--Design of evaluation instruments April 2000

Step 5 -Preparation and delivery/testing of initial pilot
programmes

Pilot programmes will be introduced in the field, in consultation
with UNDP/RBA as to focus, timing, and venue. This will be followed by joint
consultation and debriefing with the thematic specialists. Based upon the
debriefing, participant feedback and analysis of the completed evaluation
instruments, the programmes will be refined and inputs made to appropriately
modify the pilot and fine-tune the condensed and comprehensive versions
of each of the programmes.

--Programme preparation by design team May 2000

--Presentation of the pilots in each of the four thematic
areas June - Sept. 2000

` --Debriefing, analysis and evaluation of each programme
June - Sept. 2000

--Modification of programmes as indicated October 2000

Step 6 - Refinement and delivery of programmes

Further thematic seminars will be conducted in the field,
in consultation with UNDP/RBA and interested country offices. The pilot
seminars, both condensed and comprehensive, will introduce the concepts
and help refine and expand the programme content according to needs expressed
by the participants. Additional evaluation and debriefing sessions will
be held to further refine the presentations, analytical tools and planning
instruments.

--Presentation of revised thematic seminars Nov/Dec 2000

--Debriefing and final modification of programmes, as needed
December 2000

Step 7 - Database and web-site development

Existing reference materials and Internet sites related
to the four core areas will be surveyed. A comprehensive collection of material,
both hard copy and virtual, will be collected. A resource collection and
database will be developed that can serve as the basis for an informational
website and for the periodic dissemination of information to relevant governmental
and non-governmental actors and international agencies.

A web-site of conflict management-related material, resources,
and hyperlinks to related sites will be available to assist with networking,
institutional strengthening and dissemination of materials and information
to the field.

--Development and maintenance of data base Jan - Dec 2000

--Website development June - Dec 2000

Step 8 - Final review and modifications

A final review of the project outputs will be undertaken,
including final consultations with the design team, final changes and adaptations
to the models and materials will be made. The thematic seminar designs,
will be available, in condensed and comprehensive formats, for dissemination
to governments and civil society. They will also be ready for replication
in national settings, in regional or sub-regional meetings, and other venues.
Requests for seminars and policy consultations on these subjects are expected
to increase as a result of the follow-up to the AGF III on Conflict Management
and Good Governance.